<p>Is is customary for a college to send its battalion newsletter to scholarship applicants? Son got one in the mail yesterday.</p>
<p>yes, my friend received one as well.</p>
<p>Soooo, the Army scholarship review board is meeting this week. :eek:</p>
<p>Son visited one of his wish list schools on the day before Thanksgiving for an admissions interview. While there, we dropped into the ROTC office. The ROO said that Cadet Command is commited to avoiding the delays they had in distributing the October decisions. They have every intention to get news to scholarship recipients by Christmas. :)</p>
<p>Is anyone other than me hoping, waiting, and biting nails?</p>
<p>Yup. Wish CC had emoticons for pacing nervously. LOL</p>
<p>IIRC, the October decision letters were dated Nov 5 with a deadline to reply by Dec 5. This would tell me that they really can’t make the next round of offers until next Monday at the very earliest, because they need to know how many slots are left at the various battallions.</p>
<p>Did the ROO give you any idea what the initial delay was about? Technical? Program adjustments? I do remember a good week or so where there were some issues getting into the online status check, but that may or may not be related to their award system.</p>
<p>Over the break, goaliegirl shared an email she got from an ROO from one battallion which kind of surprised us. We thought this particular school was in a different battallion based upon the ARMY ROTC site. It appears to have moved to a different one, which is actually good because the original battallion is listed as a high-cost unit (i.e. less likely to get scholarships).</p>
<p>
Did you hear this from someone in ROTC? I don’t think this early in the process that they are waiting to hear back from the units to determine how many slots are left. Many people accept the offers and then can’t pass DODmerb or change their minds before Fall. I’m fairly sure they use some form of matrix or projection to approximate what the actual yield will be…</p>
<p>No, I did not hear that from someone in Cadet Command. Yes, there is some washout with DoDMERB and SA acceptances as well. However, they do have that last chance to change (or confirm) your school in spring, which I’ve always heard is where these DoDMERB washouts and SA slots are refilled, so I don’t think they overenroll like colleges do.</p>
<p>
I guess I’m still having problems with this “check with the units” concept: When you accept a ROTC scholarship do you advise the unit or send back an acceptance to the central processing center of which ever ROTC program you are applying (AFROTC, NROTC, AROTC)? If you are responding back to the “main” ROTC HQ, why would they need to check with the local unit? Wouldn’t “they” already know?</p>
<p>Don’t know about AROTC but when S returned his acceptance for NROTC it went straight to the main processing center not his college.</p>
<p>I can’t speak for the other programs, but with AROTC, you are required to reply to Cadet Command (central) when you accept a scolarship. Cadet Command then keeps track of how may of the X number of scholarships for a unit have been accepted and thus how many (if any) are still available for future boards.</p>
<p>The “check with units” concept if I am interpreting your question right is a thing where before they offer a scholarship, they check with the units to make sure the unit wants a particular candidate (a right to veto, but not add candidates). Units are known to pull their application and walk down to admissions to see how the school application looks. </p>
<p>Maybe there is another “check with unit” that you are referring to?</p>
<p>
Are they checking for “slots” that are left or whether the unit wants a candidate? I’m confused.</p>
<p>They are checking for whether a unit wants a candidate. Candidates will often put reach academic schools on their list. This gives the ROO with limited slots the ability to keep an unlikely admit from holding one of the unit’s limited slots until spring (when they get the reject letter from the college and try to switch their Harvard ROTC scholarship to their safety school). Keeps the scramble in the spring to a minimum.</p>
<p>Cadet Command keeps count of the slots, so this is not necessary to ask.</p>
<p>
He seemed to indicate it was process-oriented. Kinda like (and I’m paraphrasing) “CC tried something new in October and encountered problems. It’ll be better this go 'round.”</p>
<p>
^^^
Thanks. Makes sense.
If a candidate puts 7 schools (or however many his particular branch of ROTC requires) it is possible that he / she may be granted a scholarship at just some of those colleges? I knew that was true for NROTC, but I thought AROTC and AFROTC approved a scholarship for all the schools on the list (provided of course that the candidate is accepted into those colleges)?</p>
<p>
Thanks. Let’s hope so.</p>
<p>
No, Army limits you to “up to 5” schools. My understanding is that it will be the highest 5 on the list that have slots available and say OK to the applicant. Goaliegirl has 7 schools in 5 units on her AROTC list, with the top 5 schools representing all 5 units.</p>
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</p>
<p>For Army, the candidate lists 7 schools. It is my understanding that the Board will grant to a max of 5. On other discussion boards I saw a poster only get 4 options and another only got 3. I suppose a variety of factors could determine how many a cadidate gets: batallion capacity, admission likelihood, a local “no thanks, we’ll pass on him,” etc. But, AFAIK, a 5-school option is the most the Army grants.</p>
<p>^^^
Thanks. Guess we’ll find out within the next couple of weeks how all this turns out. My daughter applied to all three of the ROTC programs.</p>
<p>aglages,</p>
<p>I was told directly by one of the PMSs that there are three common reasons why PMS of a battalion rejects a potential scholarship candidate sent to them by the cadet command</p>
<p>(1) The school is too much of a reach for the candidate: not likely to be admitted (goaliedad mentioned it)</p>
<p>(2) They feel that the candidate is using the school/battalion as a safety back up. they don’t want to “waste” their precious scholarship quota early on on someone who will jump to a better option if they get it (just like college adcom, they do worry about “yield”)</p>
<p>(3) For whatever reason, they feel that the candidate is not a right fit for them. For instance, if the candidate interviewed with them and s/he really came across poorly, that would be a reason good enough for rejection.</p>
<p>Also, high cost battalion does not necessarily mean there are fewer scholarship slots. One battalion I checked that had 100% freshman cadets on 4 year national scholarship plus another 10-11 “walk ins” on 4 year campus scholarship served ONLY very expensive private schools, while some battalions serving “inexpensive” public schools had only 1/3 of their freshman cadets on a national 4 year scholarship, and had only 1 slot for 4 year campus scholarship. I asked the PMS of the “well funded” battalion about this discrepancy and his answer was “we are very well regarded by the cadet command, and as such, get a lot of funding”. Now, that was for the class of 2013. We all hear that the funding is a problem this year, so we see what happens when all dust settles next spring.</p>
<p>Army does not rank ROTC units any more. The best way to find out which battalion is regarded very highly by the brass, just ask this simple question: what % of your incoming freshman cadets are on a 4 year national scholarship".</p>
<p>^^^^
Thanks for the information.
<a href=“2”>quote</a> They feel that the candidate is using the school/battalion as a safety back up. they don’t want to “waste” their precious scholarship quota early on on someone who will jump to a better option if they get it (just like college adcom, they do worry about “yield”)
[/quote]
^^^
This is frightening. If you (or your child) puts your college safety choices on your list you stand a chance of being rejected (by that unit) because you are OVER qualified.</p>
<p><a href=“3”>quote</a> For whatever reason, they feel that the candidate is not a right fit for them. For instance, if the candidate interviewed with them and s/he really came across poorly, that would be a reason good enough for rejection.
[/quote]
^^^^
This is hard to believe. I would think, that if you did that poorly in an interview that you wouldn’t even be considered for a scholarship, let alone reach the point where ROTC HQ is asking the same unit that gave you such a poor interview score whether they wanted you or not.</p>
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</p>
<p>There is a way a candidate can address this issue. Show interest in them by communicating with them: email them, call them, etc and engage them EARLY ON, rather than just being an “application package”. Demonstrate to them that you are really interested in them. Also, if that college is your safety choice, you can still “elevate” that school in the eyes of the PMS of the battalion serving that school. Put that school as one of the TOP 3 school choices in the Army ROTC application. That is a clear signal to the PMS that the candidate takes them seriously. The worst case is, if the school is clearly a safety choice (you are overqualified), and you put that school at the bottom in the 7 school list. Then they “get” it - that you have no real interest in them - just a safety net: a list minute date one minute before the prom.</p>
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<p>actually, this is not hard to believe at all. I have interviewed job candidates that looked perfect on the resume, but clearly a wrong candidate for my organization. “Personality” never shows up on paper, and even recommendation letter is not 100% reliable: you can shop around and find that one person who can write a reasonably good rec letter for you. Remember: the application package is just like a marketing package: the candidate ONLY shows what they want to show. Meanwhile, personality is hard to fake. If you have a real deal breaker of a personality, you will die in any face to face interview. </p>
<p>I asked one PMS what is it she is looking for (yes, this was a rare female PMS), and she said, “You know, in the end, I have to see the candidate in the eye and see whether s/he got what it takes”. Much later in a long phone conversation, I asked “what if the candidate is in a far away location, and cannot come and interview with you personally”. Only then, she backpedaled and said, “of course, we all trust other PMS’s interview report. If my colleague in another battalion gives a great interview report, I buy it completely”. Well… This is why I believe if the candidate comes across well in an interview setting, AND s/he has a favorite battalion/school in mind, it’s best to do the interview with the PMS of that battalion. After all, we are all human, not some kind of computer scoring application software.</p>